


Loving You Feels Like This

by Twisted_Magic



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, F/F, Fluff, Game: Life is Strange (2015), Gun Violence, Happy Ending, Marijuana, Maxine "Max" Caulfield Loses Her Powers, Non-Consensual Drug Use, POV Maxine "Max" Caulfield, Post-Save Chloe Price Ending, Romance, Swearing, Tattoos, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26883997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Magic/pseuds/Twisted_Magic
Summary: Loving Chloe is a collection of moments. Some of them are beautiful, full of warm touches and adoring words. Others hurt like hell. Those beautiful moments between each death, and after the last unwound death, make all of that pain worthwhile.~Throughout the course of the game, and after they leave Arcadia Bay, Max Caulfield experiences the different emotions and sensations that make up what it is to be in love with Chloe Price.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	Loving You Feels Like This

**Author's Note:**

> I finally wrote and published my first LiS (and wlw) fic, on the day that Max and Chloe reunited in-game (at least, it was the 7th in my time zone)! I really hope I managed to capture the atmosphere of the game and do their relationship justice. Enjoy!

∞

Loving Chloe is like the tornado. It’s swirling around in Max’s head when she closes her eyelids, it’s tearing through Arcadia Bay, it’s all consuming, and all powerful, and yet, Max walks towards it every time. She always walks towards it when she sees it, because at the edges of that whirlwind is a lighthouse, a beacon of hope and warmth. 

Max would make her way through a thousand tornadoes just to reach the lighthouse that is Chloe’s smile.

* * *

October 7th 2013

It’s like a punch to Max’s gut.

She’s just watched a girl get shot in the stomach.

Max doesn’t even know who she is, but she feels like she should and it _hurts_ Max to see the blue haired girl fall in a rush of red. The bullet isn’t in her own stomach, but Max can’t bear the pain. 

She reaches out, as if she could press her hand to the bleeding wound from across the room and stop both their pain.

She does stop it.

* * *

The ride in the truck is tense. Max feels the resentment radiating off Chloe and settling its grasp around Max’s stomach, squeezing it in anxiety and guilt with the fact that Max––who just miraculously saved her childhood best friend––has hurt Chloe this much with her absence and silence all these years.

Closing one wound just to reopen another.

Max would do anything to show Chloe how much she still means to her. She wants to close this wound too.

* * *

Max is in complete awe of Chloe. The feeling is overwhelming to her senses, almost enough to drown out the song pulsing from the sound system. Chloe is dancing on her bed, swaying her body around and letting herself become undone with her whole hearted enjoyment of the music, right in front of Max. Chloe is so incredibly amazing, so beautiful, so immensely cool looking, and so evidently full of _love_. The love may be for the music, but Max hopes that some of her internal gushing, her utter adoration for Chloe, will be felt and cherished by her best friend in much the same way.

Max raises her camera, and when it flashes, she feels grateful that she can freeze this perfect moment and keep it with her in her bag, no super powers needed.

“This song fucking rules!” Chloe bursts out along with the smoke. Max briefly wonders how Chloe can manage to make swears and weed smoke seem mesmerizing when they come from her mouth.

“Can’t dance, hippie?” Chloe teases brightly. “Come on!”

Max’s awkwardness and anxiety stops her from doing many things, but not this. She’s quickly learning that she’ll always be able to summon the courage she needs to do whatever it is that Chloe asks of her.

* * *

October 10th 2013

Max wakes up in a haze of comfort. She’s on a soft bed, draped in gentle sunlight, and next to the most beautiful person in the world. Max’s first thought is that she wants to wake up every morning like this. She drinks in the sight of Chloe’s peaceful face as if she’s not going to have another morning like this with Chloe, though, because she never fully appreciated all of the little moments during their youth before those moments became far away in time and space.

* * *

There’s a bang, and there’s a hole in Chloe’s forehead.

Max has seen Chloe die several times now, so she already knows right before it happens what it’ll sound like when her body hits the ground. 

Knowing what to expect doesn’t make it hurt any less.

The grief is instant. It’s a stake driving into Max’s chest, tearing through her heart just like the bullet tore through Chloe’s brain.

While Max hasn’t died before, she’s pretty sure watching Chloe die is worse than what Chloe has experienced each time she died. It’s always been over in an instant for Chloe, but Max is the one who is left with the sight of her blood and her lifeless eyes; left in a world without the girl she loves.

Sleep is spilling into Max’s veins. She can hear someone, and feel a presence behind her as the sluggishness weighs her down from the inside out, but she’s only thinking of Chloe.

If only love could keep them both alive.

* * *

Max is dissociating. She feels nothing. It’s like she’s watching herself from outside her own body, her gaze anchored here as if by the restraints around her wrists and ankles. She can’t tell if the dissociation is due to the drug still lazily making its way through her system, the horror of the reality of Rachel’s death and Jefferson’s role in everything, or simply the numbing experience of seeing Chloe die one too many times.

Max has to get out of here. She has to rewind time. That won’t undo the dull aching pain that has been weakly grasping her in the moments throughout the time she has been in this darkroom when the emptiness inside her lessens, but it will bring Chloe back, and that’s all that’s ever been important about her powers; not erasing her own pain, just Chloe’s, which will in turn soften the blows of Max’s own pain.

If Max can only find a photo to focus into so she can tear through realities until she gets to the right one.

* * *

October 11th 2013

Max is in Chloe’s arms.

Max is soaked through from pounding rain and her ears are consumed by the wails of wind, but she’s warm in Chloe’s arms and grounded by the piercing blue of her eyes. Max doesn’t think she’s ever been happier to see Chloe in her life, and that’s saying something considering the way her heart leaps every time they see each other. The warmth spreading through Max isn’t just the heat from Chloe’s body; it’s the love spilling from Max’s heart and through her veins, giving her a buoyancy that helps her get to her feet despite how bone deep _weary_ she is. 

Chloe is taking Max to the lighthouse, and Max will go anywhere Chloe wants to take her.

* * *

December 24th 2013

The window pressed against Max’s left side is cold, but Chloe on her right is oh so warm. She’s squeezed in beside Max on the deep window seat in Max’s room while both of them watch snow fall through the night sky.

After Arcadia Bay had been destroyed, and after no survivors were found aside from the two of them, they had driven to Max’s parents’ home in Seattle. Max had spent her teen years in this house, and hadn’t left it that long ago, but Max no longer considers it her own home. While she and Chloe may be staying here for the time being, and will be celebrating Christmas together tomorrow, Max is not a child living with her parents. She’s seen and caused too many deaths for that.

“Hey,” Chloe says quietly. “You’re blaming yourself again, aren’t you?”

Max heaves a sigh and turns her gaze from the falling snow to her girlfriend beside her. She’s looking at Max with concern in her eyes, but it doesn’t completely replace the love that has found permanent residence amidst the blue.

“I wish none of it had to happen,” Max admits after a pause. She looks down and picks at the blanket covering their laps. “I wish no one had to get hurt. But,” she tentatively meets Chloe’s eyes again, “I would do it again. I know it makes me a horrible person, and closer to a villain than a hero, but I would do anything to save you. The world is...not a world without you in it.”

The dim light coming from a lamp across the room just barely illuminates the awed expression on Chloe’s face, and touches upon the blond hair growing in at the top of her head; it looks like Chloe has a halo, and Max can’t help but find that fitting considering what an ethereal being her girlfriend is.

“I love you,” Chloe whispers. Max breaks into a smile, maybe even for the first time in over two months.

“I love you too,” Max returns just as quietly, before she leans in and kisses Chloe. This is her favourite feeling in the world; their lips gently gliding together, so incredibly soft as the two of them press against each other. Growing up, Max had always thought that having Chloe as a best friend was the greatest thing in the world, and while that remains true along with their years long friendship, it doesn’t come close to having Chloe as a girlfriend.

They part, share an adoring smile, and turn back to look out the window together again. Max pulls the blanket up to their chins, and Chloe wraps her arms around Max as she sighs in contentment.

“Merry Christmas, partner in time.”

* * *

June 28th 2014

Max is thrumming with excitement. The boxes containing all of Max’s possessions from her parents’ house and all of the things Chloe has acquired over the past few months surround her and Chloe in the living room of their new apartment. Chloe has been working hard at a job while Max restarted a semester at a local high school near the beginning of the year, and they finally found a nice one that they are able to afford that’s in Seattle close to a high school where they’ll be doing their GED’s together. Max feels like she could burst with how happy she is to be doing this with Chloe; starting their lives together, never to be separated again.

“I fucking love it!” Chloe declares with glee before she grabs Max and pulls her into a tight hug. Max laughs as her girlfriend rocks them back and forth.

“Easy there, girl,” Max teases.

Chloe stops, and licks a wet line up Max’s neck.

“Eurgh!” Max squeals before she bursts into laughter again, trying to squirm out of Chloe’s arms. “You’re such a punk.”

“Oh, you know I am.”

They spend a while moving things into the appropriate rooms, arranging the boxes of kitchen stuff into a makeshift dining table in the corner and stacking boxes of books into a ghost of a bookcase in their bedroom.

After all these months, Max still can’t believe that she can just reach out and _touch_ Chloe, and pull her in for kiss if she wants to, so the organizing takes a lot longer than it should.

When they’re done, they end up in the bedroom. They’re tired and aching but still buzzing with excitement and pure happiness at having their own place together.

Max looks up at the empty wall space above their mattress. She silently walks over to her bag on the floor by the bedroom door, and pulls out the polaroid camera Chloe had given to her. She sneaks up behind Chloe, who is rummaging through a bag of bedding. Max stops behind her, reaches her arms around her, and snaps a selfie of the two of them as she presses a kiss to the cheek of her surprised girlfriend.

“Wha-I wasn’t ready, you little ninja!” Chloe exclaims.

Max giggles and steps away so she can shake the photo out. She watches as the image slowly comes into view, revealing the adorably shocked expression on Chloe’s face.

“Well, it’s perfect.” Max gazes in adoration at the cuteness that is her girlfriend.

“Are you going to stick it on the wall?” Chloe asks after a moment of silence. She comes over and rests her head on Max’s shoulder to look at the photo. “It would be a great start for another collection. Your first photo of us in our new apartment.”

Max smiles up at her and nods. “I’d like that.”

Max finds a roll of tape and fixes the photo to the wall, right in the centre of the blank canvas that is the wall.

Chloe gets onto the mattress beside her, and gently tugs her down to lie down together.

“I’m so happy we did this,” Chloe tells her as she raises Max’s fingers to her lips to kiss them.

Max’s own happiness glows warmly within her, and it grows with each gentle press of lips to her skin.

* * *

September 21st 2014

Max gasps lightly at the sharp pain below her collarbone. The needle pierces into her, leaving trails of pain as the tattoo artist slowly dances it across her skin.

“You’re lucky I love you so much,” Max says in a strained tone to Chloe. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this.”

“I know,” Chloe replies with a delighted grin from her seat by Max’s feet. “You said you trusted me, and I quote, ‘with my life,’ so you can trust me that this tattoo is going to be worth it when you see.”

Max smiles fondly at Chloe, silently letting her know that she does indeed trust her completely. This is Chloe’s birthday present to her; she had arranged an appointment for Max’s first tattoo, and is keeping the design a secret right up until it’s finished. Max isn’t allowed to look down at what the tattoo artist is doing, but that’s okay, because Max would always rather be looking at Chloe anyways. The glow in Chloe’s excited smile and wide eyes tells Max all she needs to know about the piece of art that is going to be on her skin forever.

When it’s done, the artist steps out of the room, and Max sits up in her seat.

“Are you ready?” Chloe breathes, now looking at Max expectantly as she leans forward to take her hands.

“Does it look good?” Max asks instead of answering.

Chloe smiles softly.

“Hella good. I would never let anything ruin your beauty.”

Max nods, then takes a deep breath, and looks down.

Below her right collarbone are the words “Everyday Hero” on the wings of a blue butterfly, which matches the butterfly on Chloe’s arm and the one Max photographed what feels like forever ago.

The breath leaves Max’s lungs, and all she can feel is awe.

“I know you didn’t win the Everyday Heroes contest in this timeline,” Chloe starts quietly, “and that you didn’t feel much like a superhero after Arcadia Bay got fucked over, but you truly are an everyday hero.” Chloe leans forward earnestly, drawing Max’s now watery gaze.

“You saved so many people, every day that you had your powers,” Chloe continues seriously. “You saved me everytime I needed help.” Chloe gently squeezes Max’s hands as she stares into Max’s eyes.

“You are a hero. It’s not possible that the tornado destroying Arcadia Bay was your fault, because all you ever did was be a hero every day you were in that town. You did what you could with what you had. What’s more, is that the tornado started with me, because you had to save me from Nathan. The tornado went away because you saved my life one last time. We were meant to overcome those obstacles and be together.”

Sentiments of love and tornadoes spin through Max’s head. She lets out an airy chuckle.

“This, us,” Max stumbles out through the happy tears now rolling down her cheeks, “was the light we were meant to find. The lighthouse at the edge of the storm. Because lighthouses are only on when it’s too dark to see.”

Chloe smiles brightly.

“There’s my hipster girlfriend. Now wear your hero badge with pride!”

They laugh, and share a warm and watery kiss.

* * *

∞

They made it through the storm, and the sky blue on the other end was well worth it.


End file.
